The Forbidden Kingdom Movie Review

*repost from 05/20/2008*
Directed by Rob Minkoff
Starring Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Michael Angarano

Availabiliy on dvd: today 09/09/2008
As Flava Flav never did say, "Dont believe the lack of hype!" Take all the negative reviews you've read and flush those down your mind's toilet. I was very skeptical but it easily won me over. Even the few positive reviews I read equated it to a Chinese version of The NeverEnding Story: i.e. a kid's movie done well. Yes there is some humor expressed throughout but I would never classify it as a kids movie. As a matter of fact I thought it straddles the line perfectly and would satisfy both kids and adults alike. No there is not blood spray but people definitely die in battle. Critics may have been looking for something for more substance but for the average person I think they will be satisfied. Too bad it didnt make a boat load of money like it deserves but I think positive word of mouth and dvd sales should well make up for it. As you can see over 77% of people who have seen it and rated it on imdb have rated it at least a 7 or higher. As Ive said before I love martial arts movies and I especially have a huge hard on for fantasy based ones, especially since they are far and few between.

The story is about this white kid that worships kung fu movies goes to China town and discovers the staff of the Monkey King(Jet Li) in a pawn shop. He gets magically transported to ancient China in a quest to return the staff to its rightful owner, who was tricked and imprisoned in stone. When he arrives he meets up with an old drunk man (Jackie Chan) who is going to help him on his journey. Also a female who seeks revenge against the warlord who imprisoned the Monkey King joins with them. On the way they meet up with a monk (also Jet Li) that is also on a mission to help return the staff. The drunken master and the silent monk both decide to team up and help the boy on his journey.

The story is surprisingly interesting and both Jet Li and Jackie Chan play off each other perfectly. But who cares about that. The real reason people are watching is for the kung fu. Yes there is plenty of kung fu and the quality of it (Woo Ping) is top notch. The battle between Jet Li and Jackie Chan lives up to the wait. It is 5 minutes of solid, kung fu, wirefu, bad ass battling for supremacy. Of course it ends up in a wash and they realize they are fighting over a misunderstanding. The both are equal billing and I wouldnt doubt that they both checked the screen time to see how many minutes each of them had and made it exactly equal. The movie is quick paced and edited beautifully. Great cinematography, great choreography, great cgi and solid acting. Jackie and Jet actually looked like they had a blast making the movie. I would have never guessed an American director would have nailed a movie like this so perfectly. Choreography is by Woo Ping who is on an unbelievable run of movies. In the last 10 years he has choreographed the Matrix Trilogy, Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2, Danny the Dog aka Unleashed, Fearless, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Kung Fu Hustle. Having said all that about the quality of kung fu, my favorite scene is a humorous rain scene that had me surprised and rolling. Even the honky(Michael Angarano) did a solid job and had me convinced that him and his double could do some solid kung fu. Fortunately the movie did not focus on this and he probably had about 5 minutes total of screen time fighting. While the movie is far from perfect I cant really find many negative things to say about it. Maybe the movie and final battle could have been a little longer? Other than that I give this a definite recommendation and on a scale of 1-10 I give this a poisonous jade dart 8.1 out of 10.